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tv   The Ed Show  MSNBC  October 4, 2012 11:00pm-12:00am EDT

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into socialism. that is sad. >> yeah, and joy, i want to let you know that nate he silver has updated his chances of the president winning to all right. not a good night. we didn't play very well. unusual for us. we're a hell of a team. we got a long way to go. i know you're not happy. i heard the fans. i heard it. you're hearing it from me. we're better than that. report card's fine. there's nothing wrong -- obama's great. that's why we recruited him in 2007. he's a hell of a player. we won championships with him before. we're going to win again.
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>> coach, going to be a lineup change? >> no, there's not going to be a lineup change. you think i'm going to change the lineup now? look, did he turn the ball over? yes. did he throw the ball out of bounds? yes. he missed a few lay-ups. he's still my guy. we're not changing the lineup. i told you when you started covering this team earlier this was going to be a long road. i don't know anything at playing at altitude. the kids seemed well before the game. we didn't play well. it's another game. we have to get over it. >> coach, what about the other team? >> look, you know what, if you guys want do go out and crown them the champion, do it. i think you'd be making a huge mistake if you did that. i mean, you know, you know what we got to do? we got to get to work. >> i'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. that's not my plan. >> why won't romney level with us about his tax plan which gives the wealthy huge new tax breaks? >> the obama campaign gets aggressive on mitt romney's lies on the airwaves.
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>> if we can't trust him here, how could we ever trust him here? >> and on the campaign trail -- >> governor romney made the dance around his positions but if you want to be president, you owe the american people the truth. >> tonight, stephanie cutter of the obama campaign on last night's performance and the way forward. sam stein, e.j. dionne on romney's style versus the president's substance. >> i like pbs. i love big bird. >> david k. johnston on romney's huge tax lie. james hoffa of the teamsters on romney's 108 on his feelings for the american middle class. and ohio state senator nina turner on what last night's debate means for the buckeye state. good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. if it were just only a game, right? the presidential debate last
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night was ugly. it was an ugly night because the truth left the building. it took a beating. give mitt romney credit, though. he was an all-american liar last night. and the president seemed to leave his best material, his best game at home. for millions of americans, it was extremely hard to watch mitt romney lie the way he did and get away with it. >> first of all, i don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. i don't have a tax cut of the scale that you're talking about. my view is we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. >> the lie is so outrageous, it's breathtaking. mitt romney has campaigned across this country promoting a 20% reduction in the tax rate. his plan would give the richest 1% of americans an additional $6 o,000 tax cut. for those at the very top, the 0.1%ers, they would get a $264,000 tax cut. the cost? well, it's $456 billion per year. how do you like that? romney can eliminate every deduction from the tax code and
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he still will not be able to cover the cost of these tax cuts. but romney didn't need to address any of these specifics. he just needed to lie about it. it's a strategy another president used when he was asked about his proposed tax cuts for the rich. >> let me just tell you what the facts are. the facts are, after my plan, the wealthiest of americans pay more taxes of the percentage of the whole than they do today. >> really? here we go again. a republican candidate has a plan for massive tax cuts for the rich and tells the american people the exact opposite in a debate. it only works if the candidate is a good liar. presentation does matter. give him credit. last night mitt romney was pretty good on style, but he had a boat load of lies. check out this triple whammy where romney spits out one lie after another with complete conviction. >> we didn't raise taxes. you've raised them by $1 trillion under obama care. we didn't cut medicare, of
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course, we don't have medicare, but we didn't cut medicare by $716 billion. we didn't put in place a board that can tell people ultimately what treatments they're going to receive? >> in one swoop he accused the president of the united states of raising taxes. the president gave senior answer additional savings from medicare. he even accused the president of creating a medical treatment board. yes, romney played the old death panel card. romney was an artful liar when it came to health care. >> number one, pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan. number two, young people are able to stay on their family plan. >> this is such a big lie. romney's own adviser had to shoot it down after the debate. eric burnstrom was pressed about mitt romney keeping pre-existing conditions as part of his plan. he said, we'd like to sew what states do what massachusetts did. in massachusetts we have a ban on pre-existing conditions. in other words, it's not in
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romney's plan and they're leaving it up to the states. romney was rewarded for his skillful lying at a hero's welcome at a conservative political conference in colorado today. senior obama adviser david axelrod admitted the president can't let romney's lies go unchecked next time around. >> he made a choice last night to answer the questions that were asked and to talk to the american people about what we need to do to move forward and not to get into serial fact-checking with governor romney, which can be an exhausting, never-ending, pursuit. but obviously moving forward, you know, we're going to take a hard look at this. >> no doubt, last night was a moment of disappointment for progressives in this country. but it's not a moment of defeat. it is the only time really that mitt romney has had even a slice of momentum in the last six months. he has the wind at his back because he lied really well and wasn't challenged on all of his falsehoods. there just wasn't enough time to do it all.
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the fundamentals of the race, my friends, have simply not changed. liberals need to temper their frustration from last night and look at the big picture. we need to insist mitt romney does not get a pass of any blatant lies of the future. fortunately, it looks like the president understands where he was weak last night. he tried to make up some lost ground by going after mitt romney's lies today. >> when i got on to the stage, i met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be mitt romney. but it couldn't have been mitt romney because the real mitt romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts to favor the wealthy, the fellow on stage last night said he didn't know anything about that. >> a lot of people are wondering on the sidelines, you know, why president obama didn't take the fight to mitt romney last night. it's a fair question, not critical, but fair.
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but it's clear the president realizes he can't sit back and let romney's lies go unchallenged. >> so governor romney made the dance around his positions, but if you want to be president, you owe the american people the truth. >> during an event in madison, wisconsin, president obama looked re-energized. he took on some of the most outrageous moments of romney's presentation last night. >> i just want to make sure i got this straight. he'll get rid of regulations on wall street, but he's going to crack down on sesame street. thank goodness somebody's finally cracking down on big bird. who knew that he was responsible for all these deficits? >> most importantly the president's campaign showed a willingness to take the fight to the airwaves again. the obama camp released a television ad pointing out romney's blatant lies. >> why won't romney level with us about his tax plan which gives the wealthy huge new tax breaks? because according to experts,
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he'd have to raise taxes on the middle class or increase the deficit to pay for it. if we can't trust him here, how could we ever trust him here? >> i know a lot of lefties woke up today wondering why it felt like they had a little bit better command of the material than the president did. well, who knows. today the president and his campaign showed a willingness to change direction when things don't go according to plan. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question. will mitt romney get away with lying to the american people? text "a" for yes, text "b" for no to 622639. always go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com and i'll bring you the results later on in the show. joining me tonight, stephanie cutter, obama 2012 deuty campaign manager. >> hey, ed, thanks for having me. >> you bet. there were highlights last night obviously for the president. he went after mitt romney on his $5 trillion lie. does the campaign believe it made a mistake with the debate strategy yesterday? >> you know, ed, the president was coming in to that debate last night to have a conversation with the american people about his policies, where
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he wanted to take the country. where we've been as a country over the past four years. and what a second term obama administration would look like. and what it would do for middle class americans all over this country. i think we achieved that. i think what we didn't expect is for that mitt romney to show up. i know mitt romney is an aggressive debater, a great debater, in his own words. was one of the things he used as a credential to becoming the republican nominee. we didn't expect him to be aggressively dishonest last night. >> was the president taken by the number of lies? >> well, you know, i think that, you know, today looking back at last night, you saw what the president did on the stump today. called mitt romney out for what he did last night. not just about his $5 trillion tax cut but a number of other things. and, you know, we'll continue doing that. as i was listening to your piece coming into me, and you talked about our ad. we went on the air today. we're going to continue doing it pointing out all the things mitt
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romney said last night that are basically not true. it's almost as if he forgot what the last six years of running for president meant. >> yeah. so are you -- i mean, there was a multi -- there were millions of people watching last night. over 60 million people watching. it was the biggest watch debate since 1980. are you worried people will believe mitt romney's lies if they're not countered in debates? >> ed, it's not as if these people are just tuning in right now. you know, this race has been going on for some time. they -- you know, they know that mitt romney has been campaigning for the last two years on a $5 trillion tax cut. that's the only piece of his economic policy. that's what he points to when he talks about creating jobs. so it's not as if it was made up last night. he's been campaigning on it for two years. i think they're aware when he says he doesn't have a $5 trillion tax cut that that's just simply not true. >> how has the president
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assessed his own performance? i mean, was -- were there so many lies flying across the stage last night the president just forgot some of his stuff? seriously, the automobile loan, that's a tremendous american story. 30 months of private sector job growth. 47% comment. there were basics that were left out. >> yeah. you know, there's a lot of different things to point to in this race. i think, as you know, because you've been talking about it, but there's probably very few americans who haven't heard about the 47% comment. that's the shot that was heard around the world. when that videotape came out. and it was powerful because it basically confirmed what people already thought about mitt romney, that he's not worried about the middle class, he's not worried about those struggling to get into the middle class. >> okay. >> so, you know, there are a lot of things that could have been brought up tonight. we had an aggressive, thorough conversation about the course of this race and pointing out who mitt romney is when where he wants to take this country and we'll continue doing that.
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we have two more debates left and 30-some-odd days and i think it will be a good race. all the way up to the end. >> you admit there were things that were left out. what about now the importance that is being placed on the vice president's role in all of this. obviously there's going to be heightened interest to see how vice president biden handles the radical paul ryan. >> well, i think you can expect the vice president to show up ready to talk about paul ryan's policies but also barack obama and joe biden's policies over the last four years and where together they want to take this country. now, in terms of paul ryan, you know, he's tried to soften some of his positions and certainly mitt romney's been back and forth about whether or not he supports the ryan budget. >> sure. >> he wrapped his arms around it in the primaries when he was appealing to the base, his republican base. then when he picked paul ryan after calling him the intellectual leader of the republican party, tried to move away from some of those ideas. we know mitt romney campaigned on paul ryan's budget. >> yes, he did. >> paul ryan is paul ryan
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because of that budget. and, you know, i don't think that there's any chance that's not going to be part of the conversation next week. >> stephanie cutter, thank you for your time tonight on "the ed show." appreciate it. remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of the screen. share your thoughts on twitter and @edshow and on facebook. we want to know what you think. coming up, president obama was fired up today and we want to see more of that in the next debate. e.j. dionne and sam stein join me for the conversation. where are we now? don't you love me? i'm a robot. i know. i know you're a robot! but there's more in you than just circuits and wires! uhhh. (cries) a machine can't give you what a person can. that's why ally has knowledgeable people there for you, night and day. ally bank. your money needs an ally.
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coming up, president obama says we can't double down on the policies that created the recession. find out why mitt romney's five-point plan is more of the same, next. then, mitt told the $5 trillion lie last night on his tax plan. david k. johnston will weigh in. and both candidates recognize the importance of ohio during last night's debate. but with voters already heading to the polls, will the debates have an impact in the swing states? i'll ask ohio state senator nina turner. share your thoughts with us on facebook and on twitter using #edshow. we are coming right back.
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we cannot afford to double down on the same top-down economic policies that got us into this mess. that is not a plan to create jobs. that is not a plan to grow the economy. that is not change. that is a relapse. we don't want to go back there. >> welcome back to "the ed show." thanks for watching tonight. that was president obama. obviously in denver, saying the economic policies of mitt romney are a relapse and the president is exactly correct. romney rattled off his five-point plan last night just as he has done on the stump. energy independence, education, trade agreements, cutting the deficit and help for small businesses. the website, nextnewdeal, discovered this five-point plan,
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well, has been pushed before. by senator john mccain when he accepted the republican nomination four years ago. the five points were in a different order, but in the speech, exactly the same thing. there's really no real difference. four years earlier, here it is, an almost identical five-point plan was offered by president george w. bush when he was accepting the republican nomination for re-election. now, the five points were in a different order in this speech, in the actual speech. small businesses were mentioned twice. you get the picture in all of this. bush also repeatedly mentioned no child left behind even though it wasn't one of the five points. we need to see president obama dismantle romney as more of the same and dismantle these romney lies. here's the president in wisconsin today. >> whoever it was that was on
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stage last night doesn't want to be held accountable for what the real mitt romney's been saying for the last year, but if you want to be president, then you owe the american people the truth. >> let's bring in sam stein, political reporter for "huffington post" and also e.j. dionne, msnbc contributor, and author of the book "our divided political heart. gentlemen, great to have you with us tonight. don't we need to see more of president obama, what we saw today, the next time he shares the stage with mitt romney? can we afford to see more of the same? >> oh, i think we all want to see the one we saw last night. i mean, you know, i think the best story i heard this morning about how obama supporters felt was a friend last night after the debate, a friend said that his wife woke up in the middle of the night and she thought she had a nightmare and she actually realized she was remembering the debate. now, the -- it's a true story. now, i think there are things in that debate that will actually come back to haunt mitt romney which i'll get to, but i think president obama was so determined not to make a mistake, not to upset the trajectory of the campaign, not to look like somebody who would offend swing voters, that he went all the way over the other
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way. and that just didn't work. it may -- but it may work in two respects. one is, i think there are swing voters, particularly women, who found mitt romney too hot. put aside the lies -- >> bully. >> -- and the half true truths. i think they found him too hot, too energetic in an attacking way. that could have repercussions. romney left a lot of stuff on table. unfortunately, president obama didn't answer it last night, but i still think he has real problems on the tax program. it seems like he was for his tax program before he was against it. and he's got problems on medicaid. he's got problems on medicare. i think you and i share a view. president obama made a mistake saying you and i have similar views on social security. >> he is going to have to clarify. in fact, he's already gotten a
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letter or did last week from senators, 29 of them, want to know where the president is on social security. that's the point i made last night. he may have opened up a can of worms for himself. sam, specifically, to what degree must president obama dismantle romney's outright lies on a host of issues? i mean, this is where the campaign is right now, isn't it? >> well, it's tough to get a sense of where they are, you know, because there hasn't been really good reporting about what they were thinking going into that debate. i think e.j.'s right. on one hand they didn't want to come off as sort of the aggressor. so the trajectory is in obama's favor. keep in mind if you look at the map, he has to win ohio, wisconsin and iowa and keep the states he won -- and keep the kerry map. he'll end up the next president of the united states. they have a very easy path to victory. they didn't want to upset the trajectory. i think if you have a few more moments like this you wonder if that could be complicated. the other thing, 60-million-plus people watched the debate last
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night. the most people who tuned into the debate since 1992. i don't think the obama campaign should feel comfortable taking that for granted. >> well, exactly. i think, you know, lies are believed by some people. i mean, how effective is a good salesman even if he's lying left and right to undecided low-information voters and what kind of poll movement might you expect from this debate, e.j.? >> well, i think sam is right on that and i think when the president, himself, gives the impression that he doesn't really want it that much, and that's when the laidback style i think after an hour and a half where he wasn't willing to fight for his job. >> he looked like it today. today the president came out -- where was that guy last night? >> a day late and a dollar short. >> right. i think he knows that now. you know, the early polling on this showed a couple of things. on the one hand, it did show that most people thought romney won the debate.
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>> yeah. >> but it also showed that romney didn't appear to add that much to his favorable rating from the debate. just a little bit more, actually, than obama who actually did add a little bit. and that the people, according to stan greenberg's polls, the only people he saw shifting in his big focus group were republican leaning undecideds and he found no erosion for obama. so if obama begins to turn it around now, he could begin to contain whatever damage that debate caused. >> yeah. you know, here's governor john sununu, one of the surrogates for mitt romney who has said this kind of stuff before. here it is. >> i find it fascinating, now this morning after they've slept, to watch them all scrambling around to clean up the mess the president left on the floor last night. he didn't want to prepare for this debate. he's lazy and disengaged. >> sam, what about that? >> i mean, what's to add? it's kind of absurd. it's obviously provocative. he wants to get a headline out of it. it's john sununu. there's not much to it.
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obviously obama's not lazy and disengaged. >> he left a lot of facts on the side of the road last night. the people sitting at home were screaming at their tv sets. we can't ignore that. >> you can disagree with what he's doing on these things whether foreign policy or domestic but he's not lazy or disengaged. we're overlooking the simple fact obama is not that good a debater. he wasn't that great a debater in the democratic primary. he did fine against john mccain but it wasn't acceptable. last night he clearly lost. one thing i'm hearing from democratic sources is he didn't end up with one of those moments that's going to haunt him. >> no, i don't think so. he doesn't lose any supporters and he certainly recovers from this, but we can't have any more like that. i say that. sam stein, e.j. dionne, great to have you with us tonight. next, we debunk romney's $5 trillion tax lie with david k. johnston. stay with us. mitt romney tried hard last night to make up ground with middle class voters. he put on quite a dog and pony
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show. tonight we'll remind you who the real mitt romney is with teamster's president james hoffa. stay with us.
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everybody say "awkward." protecting your family fun. now, that's progressive. call or click today. first of all, i don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. i'm not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut. let me repeat what i said. i'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. that's not my plan. >> that was mitt romney trying to rewrite his position on taxes.
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romney proved last night he is a very polished well rehearsed and unapologetic liar. now the president called him out on it. but romney was very effective at ignoring the president's attempts at fact checking. earlier this year, romney, himself, admitted the truth. >> number one, i say today we're going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20%. including the top 1%. >> now, we shouldn't be surprised when romney's own website contradicts itself. one section of the website, romney insists he'll make permanent across the board 20% cut in marginal tax rates. in a document on another part of romney's website, romney says he'll maintain marginal rates at current levels. so, which is it? well, if we are to believe that mitt romney has been saying out on the campaign trail, he'll lock in the bush tax cuts, reduce the deficit through spending cuts then put into place an additional 20% tax cut that would ultimately benefit
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the rich. how would a president romney pay for all of this? romney says he'll close loopholes but he hasn't offered any real specifics on that, either. according to an independent nonpartisan tax policy study, the lost revenues from romney's tax proposal would cost $4.8 "t," trillion, over ten years. the obama campaign has already come out with an ad hitting romney on his $5 trillion lie. i'm joined tonight by david k. johnston, pulitzer prize winning columnist and author of "the fine print: how big companies use plain english to rob you blind." david k., glad to have you with us tonight. >> thank you, ed. >> after last night, do you have a better grip, a better idea of what romney's tax plan is all about? >> no, because he's never been clear about it. as you showed, he's, on the one hand, saying i'll cut everybody's rates 20% which works out over the next 10 years to about $5 trillion. and he says i'll maintain
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current rates. now, if he's going to not have a $5 trillion tax cut it imply, he sort of hinted at this last night, that he's going take away the deductions you are. he's not going to succeed in reducing the problem by getting rid of big bird, the money to pbs isn't even chicken feed much less big bird feed. the only other project of any size he's identified is amtrak, $1.4 billion a year. we're talking trillions here. what's he going to do, take aware your home mortgage interest deduction, your charitable deduction? he won't say, but if he takes away deductions in order to lower rates, where are you better off? this, ed, is like ryan's medicare plan. i'm going to save you $1 in medicare and charge you $8 in private spending. >> who will pay for romney's tax proposal? is it the middle class? >> yeah, based on past history, what will happen if he's elected and he gets his plan, tax rates for those at the very top will fall.
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those popular deductions will remain in the law. and what will happen is that we'll cut government services and they've already said what they want to cut. big bird is a little tiny part of it. >> yeah. >> they want to gut medicare, they want to gut social security. they want to increase military spending way beyond what the pentagon wants when we're shutting down these two wars. >> all right. i want to play this. here's what romney said regarding deductions of outsourcing. here it is. >> as you said, you get a deduction for taking a plant overseas? look, i've been in business for 25 years. i have no idea what you're talking about. i maybe need to get a new accountant. >> what's he lying about here? >> there are a whole varieties of subsidies that go to companies that move overseas. there's a report out momentarily, or recently, about $168 million. that's a small part of it. one of the fundamental rules here is that american corporations are allowed to build up untaxed profits offshore. american companies are sitting on $6 trillion of cash. that's $20,000 for every man, woman and child, and about half
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of it is untaxed profits held offshore. >> so how could romney not know that? i mean, this guy's a corporate shark. i mean, he's got to be lying about it. now, he also suggested the deduction cap could be set at $25,000 or $50,000 instead of his original suggestion of $17,000. now, how does that change the math? >> well, romney deducted $4 million in itemized deductions. that's more than twice what he paid in federal income tax in 2011. if he'd taken all of his charitable deductions it would have been more than $6 million. so were he to get this through, and i can't imagine the people backing him are going to be in favor of that by any stretch of the imagination, there might be some effect. but how many people do you know, ed, who make enough money to take $25,000 or $50,000 as a deduction? take a look at your tax return, folks. see how much if you itemize and only about one in three americans itemize, and if you've got $25,000 or $50,000, you're doing really well.
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>> david cay johnston, always good to have you with us on "the ed show." a lot more coming up in the next half hour or "the ed show." stay right with us. i was in dayton, ohio. a woman grabbed my arm. she said, i've been out of work since may. can you help me? >> all of a sudden mitt romney is concerned for middle class americans asking for help. >> they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. >> james hoffa of the teamsters on mitt romney's pandering to the middle class. we'll bring you the latest on mitt romney's goal to fry big bird. >> he'll get rid of regulations on wall street, but he's going to crack down on sesame street. and how did last night's big debate play in the most important swing state in the union? there is no better person to ask than state senator nina turner. follow the wings.
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welcome back to "the ed show." well, mitt romney put on quite a dog and pony show last night for middle class voters across
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america. all right there. he's a different dude. during debate, he pulled a complete 180. now all of a sudden romney's concerned about the 47% of americans he trashed back in may. >> high income people are doing just fine in this economy. they'll do fine whether you're president or i am. the people who are having the hard time right now are middle income americans. under the president's policies middle income americans have been buried. they're just being crushed. >> romney sold his phony image hard. he sold real hard. he also told some personal stories. >> i was in dayton, ohio, and a woman grabbed my arm and said, i've been out of work since may, can you help me? ann yesterday was at a rally in denver. a woman came up to her with a baby in her arms and said, ann, my husband has had four jobs in three years, part-time jobs, he's lost his most recent job and we now just lost our home. can you help us? >> the bottom line is mitt romney has offered absolutely nothing to help the middle class.
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he opposed the automobile loan program. he was against stopping home foreclosures. he even vetoed a minimum wage increase to $8 an hour while he was governor of massachusetts and to top it all off, he picked a running mate whose immoral budget would devastate programs for the middle class. last night, romney tried hard to reshape his image with average americans, but unfortunately, for mitt, the 47% video will always be there because that's who he is. it will always expose what he really thinks about americans. >> there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. there are 47 pk who are with him who are dependent upon government who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for themes who believe they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. so my job is not to worry about those people. they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. >> for more on the new mitt romney that we saw last night, let's turn to james hoffa,
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president of international brotherhood teamsters who comes to us tonight from local 630 in los angeles. mr. hoffa, great to you with us tonight. what did the middle class miss about mitt romney last night? >> well, you know, it's hard to debate somebody that lies constantly, and for him to all of a sudden say he cares about the middle class, i believe that video about the 47%, that's what he really thinks about us. and he still is back to, he's going to have tax cuts for the rich and there's only one way to balance a budget. going after social security, medicare, medicaid. he wants to privatize social security. he wants to send you a voucher with regard to medicare. he is against what we stand for, and the things that basically are the safety net in america right now. and no matter what you saw last night, it was a big lie because he basically tried to remake himself last night. you know, we know the real mitt romney. >> he says the middle class has been crushed under president
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obama. what's your reaction to that? >> well, they haven't been crushed. basically they're suffering from the bush crash that happened in '08. and people haven't recovered from that. you know, people's homes are under water. we haven't recovered our economy. we have people unemployed. let's look at what's going on. the economy's coming back. we basically have people working. teamsters are working. uaw members are working. the auto industry is thriving. all the different people that work in plants are back to work. so we have hundreds of thousands of people that have had their jobs back, so that's good news. we're on our way back and basically need more time. that's all. for him to say they've been crushed, it's not true. his party crushed the economy in '08. >> are you concerned at all about labor? are those folks standing by you tonight still where they were 48 hours ago when it comes to president obama? >> they haven't changed one bit. they know the truth and can tell a liar when they see one. >> now, what about president
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obama saying he wants to lower the corporate tax rate on manufacturing to 25%? what does that mean for workers? >> well, whatever it does, ed, we can help create more jobs in this country. what i like what he said about basically, we're going to reward people that put jobs here in america and we're going to make sure the tax is an incentive for people who send american jobs overseas. something that mitt romney has done. he did that at bain and sent jobs overseas. >> what was your response when romney was talking about he's been in business for 25 years, he didn't know anything about incentives for shipping jobs overseas? what was your reaction to that? >> well, again, it's this lie after lie. it's hard to debate somebody when he takes one position on his website, one position during the campaign and gets on television and completely changes it. he knows there's all kinds of incentives to have people move offshore. that's what's wrong with our trade policy. we have to get rid of those and
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basically make it so it costs you more money to send your job to china, build the thing here in america where it belongs. >> mr. james hoffa, teamster president. great to have you tonight on "the ed show." appreciate your time. mitt romney feels the backlash for threatening to defund a cultural icon in america. i'll tell you why big bird made a big splash last night at the debate.
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up next, mitt romney ruffled some feathers with his comments about cutting pbs. now the president is weighing in on mitt's big bird flap. and in the big finish tonight, ohio is key to victory for both candidates. i'll ask ohio state senator nina turner if last night's debate was a game changer for voters in her state. don't forget, listen to my radio show on sirius xm radio channel 127 monday through friday, noon to 3:00 p.m. and follow me on twitter @edshow and like "the ed show" on
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i'm sorry, jim, i'm going to stop the subsidy to pbs. i'm going to stop other things. i like pbs. i love big bird. i actually like you, too. i'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from china to pay for. >> okay. mitt romney has never made it a secret he really likes firing people. he ruffled feathers when me proposed to cut federal funding for pbs. it wasn't because moderator jim lehrer worked for pbs since 1973. romney messed with the most popular bird in america, and twitter responded. big bird peaked at 17,000 tweets per minute and the #savesesamestreet became the top trending topic. >> i don't understand. you know, everything was just fine. why does it have to be this way? give me one good reason.
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>> well, that's the problem, pbs doesn't receive any direct money from the government. the government funds the corporation for public broadcasting, a profit -- a private non-profit corporation that distributes the subsidy to local pbs stations. in 2012, cpb was given $444.1 million. let's see. what is that? that's .012% of the federal budget. last year, pbs received just 5% of cpb's total appropriation? so in terms of having an impact on the nation's debt, folks, we're talking about a drop in the bucket, but to many americans mitt romney is talking about cutting an institution. pbs calls itself america's biggest classroom for a reason. it offers educational programming to kids across america who might otherwise not have access. president obama put it best. >> thank goodness somebody is
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finally getting tough on big bird. it's about time. we didn't know that big bird was driving the federal deficit. but that's what we heard last night. how about that? elmo, too? >> tonight, in our survey i asked, will mitt romney get away with lying to the american people? 18% of you say yes. 82% of you say no. coming up, forget about the style and the zingers. there's only one way to know if romney really won last night's debate. it's simple. we'll explain it next. stay with us. [ male announcer ] if it wasn't for a little thing called the computer,
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now express lane finds your driving info with just one click, saving time to be nostalgic about the days before express lane. thank you, insurance for the modern world. esurance. now backed by allstate. click or call. and in tonight's big finish let's talk about the bottom line in this election, folks. the republicans may be high fiving behind closed doors over mitt romney's debate performance, but style won't matter a bit if romney fails to move the needle in the important state of ohio. early voting started there tuesday, and turnout could be a record breaker. some counties are reporting twice the number of voters than they got in 2008. this kind of turnout is exactly what the republicans were fearing. they, they tried to stop early voting, didn't they? but their tactics didn't hold up in court. now romney realizes that he has to win ohio the old fashioned
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way. he has to earn it. as a result, ohio got a lot of love from both candidates during the debate. >> i was in dayton, ohio, and a woman grabbed my arm. she said, i've been out of work since may. >> at cleveland clinic, one of the best health care systems in the world, they actually provide great care cheaper than average. >> your example of the cleveland clinic is my case in point. >> the autoworkers that you meet in toledo or detroit take such pride in building the best cars in the world not just because of a paycheck, but because if gives them that sense of pride that they're helping to build america. >> ohio is the key to the election. the state carries 18 electoral votes. look how the numbers break down. this is romney's best-case scenario. without ohio, romney would have to win five other battleground states. he's trailing, or tied, in all of those states. so he'd need to -- he'd need multiple come-from-behind victories across the board.
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and here's the bad news for the candidate. the latest ohio poll shows president obama ahead by eight points. romney hasn't made any gains for almost a month in that state. i promised i'd get to the bottom line. here it is. winning a debate, real nice, important for the moment. romney needs to win ohio if he wants to be president of the united states. we'll see if a single debate can make a difference for him. joining me tonight, ohio state senator, nina turner. senator, good to have you with us tonight. >> thanks, ed. >> do you think romney's debate performance was enough to change the dial a little bit in ohio? >> not at all, ed. as you outlined, ohio is trending in favor of president obama. ohioans get governor romney does not understand that being president of the united states is not a business venture, it's a service venture, and governor rommy does not get it. he hasn't been in elected office since 2007 so it was easy for him to talk last night about hypotheticals and what he would have done. what he did as governor was slash budgets by hundreds of
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millions of dollars for local government, cut funding for higher education. he left office with a 34% approval rating. ohioans are not buying etch a sketch part ii, excuse me, governor romney was shifting last night, ed. >> "the hill" reports republicans plan to spend $4.2 million in ohio this week. it's $2 million less than they spent last week. can money shift votes in ohio, you think? which, of course, leads me to the next question about early voting. combine those two. what about the money, what about the early voting? >> well certainly money has some impact, but ed, in ohio, money is not going to buy governor romney love. ohioans understand who stood by them, saving the auto industry. women in this state understands who believes in them. the president signed the lilly ledbetter act, the affordable care act helping young people in tough times being able to stay on their parents' health care plan. ohioans understand that and
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that's why this state is still going toward the president. so, no, money is not going to buy governor romney love in this state. >> so you know president obama. ohioans know what he has done for the economy. >> we. >> and the pack of lies, nobody is -- everybody's going to see through exactly what romney was doing last night? that's the take? >> that's the take, ed. you know, republicans talk about a president who has been trying. well, yes, he has been trying. you know, you want to talk about trickle-down government. if that means saving the auto industry and proviing a safety net for people who are in need, if that means stopping and averting a great recession from going into a great depression, we will take trickle-down government any day of the week. the governor -- the president is trying but the governor's doing a whole lot of lying. >> should the republicans worry about voter turnout? >> absolutely, they should, ed. and all the voter suppression, tactics that they are using in the state of ohio is just further cementing the cause of folks getting out to vote. people in ohio are excited
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getting out to vote and that's clearly the first day in early voting where in one county almost 1,900 people, ed, showed up the first day of early voting, far outpassing what happened in 2008. >> the afl-cio said today it registered 68,000 new voters in the state of ohio. that's a heavy lift. >> it is. it's the right kind of lift, ed. >> well, okay. so does president obama need to do more in the state, go reaffirm his position with these voters? or do you consider him to still be in really good shape in ohio? >> he's in good -- >> did the debate do anything to him last night? >> the president is in good shape, but come on. i feel like you and chris matthews after that debate. the president is going to have to bring it the way he should and the way he knows that he needs to do it, but he's going to be here in cleveland tomorrow. the president has visited here 22 times.